Recommendations of the Global Multiple System Atrophy Research Roadmap Meeting

Ryan R. Walsh, Florian Krismer, Wendy R. Galpern, Gregor K. Wenning, Phillip A. Low, Glenda Halliday, Walter J. Koroshetz, Janice Holton, Niall P. Quinn, Olivier Rascol, Leslie M. Shaw, David Eidelberg, Pam Bower, Jeffrey L. Cummings, Victor Abler, Judy Biedenharn, Gal Bitan, David J. Brooks, Patrik Brundin, Hubert Fernandez, Philip Fortier, Roy Freeman, Thomas Gasser, Art Hewitt, Günter U. Höglinger, Matt J. Huentelman, Poul H. Jensen, Andreas Jeromin, Un Jung Kang, Horacio Kaufmann, Lawrence Kellerman, Vikram Khurana, Thomas Klockgether, Woojin Scott Kim, Carol Langer, Peter LeWitt, Eliezer Masliah, Wassilios Meissner, Ronald Melki, Susanne Ostrowitzki, Steven Piantadosi, Werner Poewe, David Robertson, Cyndi Roemer, Dale Schenk, Michael Schlossmacher, Jeremy D. Schmahmann, Klaus Seppi, Lily Shih, Andrew Siderowf, Glenn T. Stebbins, Nadia Stefanova, Shoji Tsuji, Sharon Sutton, Jing Zhang

Multiple system atrophy (MSA) is a rare neurodegenerative disorder with substantial knowledge gaps despite recent gains in basic and clinical research. In order to make further advances, concerted international collaboration is vital. In 2014, an international meeting involving leaders in the field and MSA advocacy groups was convened in Las Vegas, Nevada, to identify critical research areas where consensus and progress was needed to improve understanding, diagnosis, and treatment of the disease. Eight topic areas were defined: pathogenesis, preclinical modeling, target identification, endophenotyping, clinical measures, imaging biomarkers, nonimaging biomarkers, treatments/trial designs, and patient advocacy. For each topic area, an expert served as a working group chair and each working group developed priority-ranked research recommendations with associated timelines and pathways to reach the intended goals. In this report, each groups' recommendations are provided.